We laughed together at this silly old man, when out of sight; but we confessed that, if travel in our own country ever came, with advancing corruption, to be treated with the small deceits practiced upon it in Italy, it was not likely to be treated with the small civilities also there attendant on it,—­and so tried to console ourselves.

At the moment of departure, we were surprised to have enter the diligence a fellow-countryman, whom we had first seen on the road from Naples to Rome.  He had since crossed our path with that iteration of travel which brings you again and again in view of the same trunks and the same tourists in the round of Europe, and finally at Civita Vecchia he had turned up, a silent spectator of our scene with the agent of the diligence, and had gone off apparently a confirmed passenger by steamer.  Perhaps a nearer view of the sailor’s hornpipe, as danced by that vessel in the harbor, shook his resolution.  At any rate, here he was again, and with his ticket for Follonica,—­a bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked man, and we will say a citizen of Portland, though he was not.  For the first time in our long acquaintance with one another’s faces, we entered into conversation, and wondered whether we should find brigands or any thing to eat on the road, without expectation of finding either.  In respect of robbers, we were not disappointed; but shortly after nightfall we stopped at a lonely post-house to change horses, and found that the landlord had so far counted on our appearance as to have, just roasted and fragrantly fuming, a leg of lamb, with certain small fried fish, and a sufficiency of bread.  It was a very lonely place as I say; the sky was gloomy overhead; and the wildness of the landscape all about us gave our provision quite a gamy flavor; and brigands could have added nothing to our sense of solitude.

The road creeps along the coast for some distance from Civita Vecchia, within hearing of the sea, and nowhere widely forsakes it, I believe, all the way to Follonica.  The country is hilly, and we stopped every two hours to change horses; at which times we looked out, and, seeing that it was a gray and windy night, though not rainy, exulted that we had not taken the steamer.  With very little change, the wisdom of our decision in favor of the diligence formed the burden of our talk during the whole night; and to think of eluded sea-sickness requited us in the agony of our break-neck efforts to catch a little sleep, as, mounted upon our nightmares, we rode steeple-chases up and down the highways and by-ways of horror.  Any thing that absolutely awakened us was accounted a blessing; and I remember few things in life with so keen a pleasure as the summons that came to us to descend from our places and cross a river in one boat, while the two diligences of our train followed in another.  Here we had time to see our fellow-passengers, as the pulsating light of their cigars illumined their faces, and to discover among them that Italian, common